Kixeye is a San Francisco-based online gaming company founded in 2009 by Paul Preece, Will Harbin and Dave Scott. The company develops multiplayer titles including Backyard Monsters, Vega Conflict, Battle Pirates and War Commander and operates additional studios in Australia, Canada and Vietnam. Kixeye raised $20m in a funding round led by Icon Ventures with participation from Ridge Ventures, Trinity Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. In conjunction with the funding, Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed will rejoin Kixeye’s board. The company plans to use the funds to expand operations and further develop its technology platform with a specific focus on mobile. Kixeye is building an in-house machine-learning platform to optimize marketing, monetization and retention for its mobile games. Kixeye, formerly The Casual Collective, develops social and realtime strategy games for Facebook, including Battle Pirates and Backyard Monsters. The company targets hardcore gamers and plans an aggressive release cadence—one major title per quarter—starting with the RTS War Commander and exploring dynamic MMORPGs and racing and action genres. Over the past 18 months Kixeye grew its team from 3 to 60 and expanded to over 5 million monthly active users; Backyard Monsters averages more than 1 million daily active users. CEO Will Harbin said the company became profitable and cash-flow positive in the prior eight months. Kixeye intends to use the new funding to expand its team, accelerate releases, and pursue titles that push the Facebook platform. The company is based in San Francisco. The Casual Collective launched with eight Flash games (four new titles and updates to earlier hits) developed by founders David Scott and Paul Preece. The site emphasizes multiplayer support — allowing up to twelve players simultaneously — and includes a social news feed for high scores and game invitations. All games are free and fully playable, with planned monetization via optional bonus packs priced around $2.25 that add options or characters. The company has also integrated its own advertising platform to earn ad revenue as games get syndicated across the web. The founders have prior successes: Flash Element TD reached 2 million plays in two days, and Desktop Tower Defense was a major viral hit. The Casual Collective is exploring future distribution of social updates through external channels such as Facebook’s News Feed.

Total raised

$39M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Mar 2018